Genesis 1 describes how God created creatures "according to their kinds". Creationist Literalists are often critiqued for not being able to define what "kinds" are. I would like to suggest the possibility that "kinds" actually refers to what are known by biologists as "nested hierarchies".

My understanding of what a nested hierarchy is is probably lacking. I like to think of the world's languages as nested hierarchies. God created different languages during the "Tower of Bable" incident (as you know) and they are distinct from each other. For example, German is distinct from Mandarin.

God created primates, which includes humans. Is this not a nested hierarchy?

You say "all life is a nested hierarchy", but apparently there are many creatures that don't fall into a nested hierarchy.

My understanding of what a nested hierarchy is is probably lacking. I like to think of the world's languages as nested hierarchies. God created different languages during the "Tower of Bable" incident (as you know) and they are distinct from each other. For example, German is distinct from Mandarin.

Languages fall into nested hierarchies because they share common ancestry and evolve independently, much like life does. German and English sound more similar than German and Mandarin because they share a more recent common ancestor. We can trace the shared ancestry between English and German through documents, so it isn't a case of the languages being created de novo more than 4,000 years ago.

God created primates, which includes humans. Is this not a nested hierarchy?

So you are saying that humans share a common ancestor with all other primates? Are you saying that God created a single primate species, and all modern primates, including humans, descend from that initial primate species?

Primates are also branches within the mammal nested hierarchy along with other branches such as rodents, ungulates, bats, cetaceans, marsupials, and monotremes. Are mammals a created kind?

Mammals are but one branch in the tetrapod nested hierarchy which includes amphibians, reptiles, and birds.

Tetrapods are but one branch in the vertebrate nested hierarchy which includes bony fish, sharks, agnathans, and urochordates.

Vertebrates are but one branch in the animal nested hierarchy that includes cniderians, sponges, molluscs, worms, and arthropods.

Animals are but one major branch of the eukaryote tree which also includes plants and protists.

So where is this created kind on this tree, and are you just going to pick some arbitrary point on the tree to place your created kinds?

Genesis 1 describes how God created creatures "according to their kinds". Creationist Literalists are often critiqued for not being able to define what "kinds" are. I would like to suggest the possibility that "kinds" actually refers to what are known by biologists as "nested hierarchies".

Genesis defines (loosely) kind as a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants ("according to their kinds") so it would seem that we are talking about the same thing, with today's species descending from a common ancestor (population\breeding pair\etc) via (micro)evolution:

(1) The process of evolution involves changes in the composition of hereditary traits, and changes to the frequency of their distributions within breeding populations from generation to generation, in response to ecological challenges and opportunities for growth, development, survival and reproductive success in changing or different habitats.

With multiple population division events followed by independent evolution, a pattern is formed that looks like a branching bush or tree: the tree of descent from common ancestor populations. Each branching point is a node for a clade of the parent species at the node point and all their descendants, and with multiple speciation events we see a pattern form of clades branching from parent ancestor species and nesting within larger clades branching from older parent ancestor species.

Where A, B, C and G represent population division events and the common ancestor populations of a clade that includes the common ancestor species and all their descendants: C and below form a clade that is part of the B clade, B and below form a clade that is also part of the A clade; G and below also form a clade that is also part of the A clade, but the G clade is not part of the B clade.

... I would like to suggest the possibility that "kinds" actually refers to what are known by biologists as "nested hierarchies".

So the biological term is clade.

Message 1: God created primates, which includes humans. Is this not a nested hierarchy?

Quick answer is yes, however care has to be taken to ensure all descendants are included in the clade to be monophyletic.

The question is how far back do we -- can we -- go to find the common ancestor and determine the created kind -- ie is there a limit to how far back we can go, and what causes that limit.

You say "all life is a nested hierarchy", but apparently there are many creatures that don't fall into a nested hierarchy.

I'm not aware of any. Got a few examples?

Based on my reading of Dredge to this point, he has no idea whatsoever what a nested hierarchy is. The idea that at a particular moment in time a god created languages which are "distinct from each other" and yet form a nested hierarchy betrays a deep, deep misunderstanding.

And like all Creationists forgets that the Genesis myths list what was created and reality shows that not a single thing listed as being created in the beginning shows up in the reality called the first few hundred million years or more since the creation of the Earth.

The whole concept begs the question of why God would create separate kinds that fit into a nested hierarchy.

The argument often used by ID/creationists is that mammal-like reptiles are best explained by a common creator combining features from both mammals and reptiles into a new kind. So why wouldn't that same process also combine features from mammals and birds, or fish and cephalopods? Why can't we find a created kind with mammary glands and feathers, or a shark with a forward facing retina and tentacles?

I see no reason why we would ever expect separately created kinds to fit into a nested hierarchy. There are literally trillions of other possible combinations of features other than a nested hierarchy, so why this pattern when there are so many other patterns of shared features to pick from? Until creationists can explain this, they really don't have an argument.

so why this pattern when there are so many other patterns of shared features to pick from? Until creationists can explain this, they really don't have an argument.

If forced to debate this side, I might use a number of possible thoughts.

1) God created every living thing through some kind of directed evolution.2) God created some animals from other animals even if he did it all in one day3) There is a logical reason for things, but we just don't know it.4) Copied from a working planet somewhere else.

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